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CCNet 105/2001 - 10 October 2001
================================


"The terrible events three weeks ago today have prompted several
correspondents to propose that minor planets be named to honor the
victims. Deeply sympathetic to this desire, but as an independent
action, the IAU Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature has unanimously agreed
to name three minor planets for concepts that represent some of the most
basic and universal human values. The resulting names and citations,
on {MPC} 43684, for the consecutively numbered minor planets (8990),
(8991) and (8992), which were discovered at observatories on three
continents, are intended as a positive statement abhorring the tragedy that
occurred on a fourth. The 13 members of the CSBN represent the United
States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Norway, the Czech
Republic, Uruguay and New Zealand.

(8990) Compassion = 1980 DN
     Discovered 1980 Feb. 19 at the Klet Observatory.
     Named by the Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature to honor the
compassion of people around the world for the friends and families of
the victims of disasters, exemplified by the terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington on 2001 Sept. 11, with the hope that they will
overcome their sorrow.

(8991) Solidarity = 1980 PV1
     Discovered 1980 Aug. 6 at the European Southern Observatory.
     Named by the Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature to honor the
solidarity of people around the world with both victims and survivors of
terrorist attacks like those on New York and Washington on 2001 Sept. 11,
in the goal of eliminating terrorism from the world.

(8992) Magnanimity = 1980 TE7
     Discovered 1980 Oct 14 at the Purple Mountain Observatory.
     Named by the Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature to honor the
magnanimity of people around the world in dealing with terrorist attacks
like those on New York and Washington on 2001 Sept. 11, in the hope
that terrorism will be countered with justice for all, not with revenge.
-- IAU Minor Planet Circular, 2 October 2001



"Predictions that the end of the world is at hand have come and gone
for centuries, and they've always had one thing in common. They've
always been wrong. Yet with the terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington, experts who monitor doomsday predictions say fresh apocalyptic
scenarios are popping up with a new intensity. [...] The apocalypse-minded
aren't deterred by errant predictions, said Richard Landes, director of
Boston University's Center for Millennial Studies. "These people don't
give up because they're disappointed," he said. "They're just waiting for a
new sign."
- Jay Lindsay, Holland Sentinel, 6 October 2001



(1) MAYBE IT WAS METEORS: WILDFIRE CLUSTER PROBED
    Denver Post, 9 October 2001

(2) METEORITES & METEORWRONGS - CLUES (CCNet 13 December 1999)
    Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>

(3) NAMING OF ASTEROIDS FOR SEPT. 11 VICTIMS
    Reiner M. Stoss <rstoss@hrz1.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>

(4) ULYSSES SEES THE SUN BEGIN TO QUITEN DOWN
    Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>

** CATASTROPHISM & TERRORISM **

(5) FLORIDA CASES LIKELY TO BE FIRST EVER ANTHRAX ATTACK
    New Scientist, 9 October 2001

(6) BIOTERRORISM: OBTAINING ANTHRAX IS HARD, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE
    The New York Times, 10 October 2001

(7) ANTHRAX ATTACK? PROBABLY, BUT THAT'S NO REASON TO PANIC.
    Reason Magazine, 10 October 2001

(8) WAR ON TERRORISM COULD CLOG MILITARY'S SPACE AIRWAVES
    Space.com, 8 October 2001

(9) TERRORIST ATTACKS FORCE SPACE PROGRAMS TO FOCUS ON LAND-BASED SECURITY
    Canadian Press, 9 October 2001

(10) TERROR ATTACKS FUEL END TIMES THEOLOGIES
     Holland Sentinel, 6 October 2001

(11) GOOD NEWS - FOR A CHANGE
     Andy Smith <astrosafe@yahoo.com>

(12) SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE AND THE AFGHAN REFUGEES
     Steve Drury <s.a.drury@open.ac.uk>

================
(1) MAYBE IT WAS METEORS: WILDFIRE CLUSTER PROBED

>From Denver Post, 9 October 2001
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E174190,00.html

By Electa Draper
Denver Post Four Corners Bureau

Tuesday, October 09, 2001 - PAGOSA SPRINGS - Firefighters are investigating
whether a meteor shower ignited a strange cluster of wildland fires across 4 miles in the Cat
Creek Road area the night of Sept. 25.

Up to 18 small fires erupted around 7:30 that night. The Pagosa Springs Fire
Protection District extinguished the small blazes and had them mopped up by
early the next morning. In four or five cases, area residents were the first
to douse flames since they were threatening their homes, officials said.

District officials don't suspect arson, believing instead that some sort of
natural event ignited the blazes, firefighter David Vega said. Crews used
metal detectors last week to try to find bits of any unusual elements in the
area of the burns. So far they have come up empty-handed.

Officials are asking anyone with information regarding the fires to call
970-731-4191.

Copyright 2001 The Denver Post

==========
(2) METEORITES & METEORWRONGS - CLUES (CCNet 13 December 1999)

>From Matthew Genge <M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk>

Dear Benny,

As a meteoriticist who often deals with members of the public who believe
they have found meteorites, the description of the fall from Guyra sounds
very familiar indeed. The eye-witness accounts that accompany meteorwrongs
(as opposed to meteorites) frequently have a common thread that reflect
public misconceptions of meteorite falls. The following are the most common
supporting facts given at the Natural History Museum in London as definite
proof of an extraterrestrial origin:

(1) "It must be a meteorite because it fell from the sky". This is of course
accurate and true but is not necessarily proof of an extraterrestrial
origin, lots of things fall from the sky including birds (and occasionally
frogs and fish) and the vast majority of them are not meteorites. In a
number of cases the objects in question at the NHM were in fact tarmac, one
of which had a tyre track embedded on one side. The possibility of human
intervention (particularly when the sample has fallen through a greenhouse)
must also be considered. In one particularly impressive case (recounted by
Alex Halliday) a large block of limestone had been dropped through the roof
of a barn by a light aircraft pilot.

(2) "It was glowing when it hit the ground". Fireballs usually experience
terminal detonations at altitudes of ~20 km after which most fragments are
falling at atmospheric settling velocity and are no longer able to ionise
the atmosphere to produce a fireball phenomenon. Only larger, crater-forming
bodies may reach the Earth's surface as fireballs and therefore unless the
observation is accompanied by a description of an impact flash, shock wave
and a big hole in the ground it is unlikely to have been a meteorite. It is worth
mentioning that it is very difficult to estimate the trajectory and distance
of a fireball from a single eye-witness account. The frequently described
observation that "It fell behind the house/tree/car" may relate to a
fireball that had simply passed over the immediate horizon. In this case it
is quite natural that people will then go to where they believe the object
fell and recover the most unusual thing they find (industrial slag/iron,
coal and in one case a concrete fence post).

(3) "The meteorite was hot when I picked it up". Heat loss by ablation
during atmospheric entry is very efficient and the fusion crusts of
meteorites are usually less than a millimetre in thickness and have cooled
and solidified in the last few seconds of luminous flight. Unless a
meteorite is large enough to experience significant shock on impact (e.g.
Canyon Diablo) it is unlikely to be hot to touch. Again the presence of a
sizeable crater might be expected for such hot meteorites.

(4) "There was an explosion". Detonations and shock waves at the impact site
are only likely for larger bodies that either impact the ground to form a
crater or experience a terminal detonation at relatively low altitude. One
recent case, for example, in which a detonation in a farm yard in the dead
of night was accompanied with a small crater and milk churns peppered with
holes was probably not a meteorite since the event occurred in County
Antrim. An explosion that occurred in Northern Kenya was slightly more
puzzling because a 300 kg iron meteorite was recovered. The eye-witness
accounts describe a detonation, a pall of smoke and metal fragments that
were embedded in trees in a banana plantation. However, the iron meteorite
was weathered and evidently had been exposed on the Earth's surface for
sometime. Since the area is politically sensitive and has been shelled and
land-mined it may suggest the discovery of the meteorite was somewhat
serendipitous. 

(5) "It smashed through my window".  Except for large meteoroids that reach
the ground at a significant fraction of their original velocity, meteorites
are usually falling vertically by the time they land. Once exception was a
fragment of Barwell that bounced through a window in Leicestershire on
Christmas Eve in 1965. A report from the metropolitan police that a
meteorite had fallen through an open window in London and set fire to a
carpet under a budgie cage was however spurious. Inspection of the blackened
residue claimed to be the remnants of the meteorite revealled only millet
seeds. These are not counted amongst the most important components of
chondritic meteorites.

Meteorite falls are usually not particularly impressive events at the
locality of the fall itself. The description of the Glatton fall in 1991
near Peterborough is typical since Mr Arthur Pettifor assumed 'hooligans'
had thrown the meteorite into his garden. Only where meteorites are large
(e.g. Sikhote-Alin which probably impacted the ground at ~1 km/s) or strike
property (generally the roofs of occupied buildings or our precious cars)
are meteorite falls particularly dramatic.

____________________
Dr Matthew J. Genge
Researcher (Meteoritics)
Department of Mineralogy, The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.
Tel: Int + 020 7 942 5581
Fax: Int.+ 020 7 942 5537
email: M.Genge@nhm.ac.uk
Staff internet page http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/genge/genge.htm

===========
(3) NAMING OF ASTEROIDS FOR SEPT. 11 VICTIMS

>From Reiner M. Stoss <rstoss@hrz1.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>
Sent: 10 October 2001 06:11
To: mpml@yahoogroups.com
Subject: {MPML} Re: Naming of asteroids for Sept. 11th victims

Oct. 2 MPCs:

The terrible events three weeks ago today have prompted several
correspondents to propose that minor planets be named to honor the victims.
Deeply sympathetic to this desire, but as an independent action, the IAU
Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature has unanimously agreed to name
three minor planets for concepts that represent some of the most basic and
universal human values.  The resulting names and citations, on {\it MPC}
43684, for the consecutively numbered minor planets (8990), (8991) and
(8992), which were discovered at observatories on three continents, are
intended as a positive statement abhorring the tragedy that occurred on a
fourth.  The 13 members of the CSBN represent the United States, the
European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Norway, the Czech Republic, Uruguay
and New Zealand.

snip

(8990) Compassion = 1980 DN
     Discovered 1980 Feb. 19 at the Klet Observatory.
     Named by the Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature to honor the
compassion of people around the world for the friends and families of the
victims of disasters, exemplified by the terrorist attacks on New York
and Washington on 2001 Sept.\ 11, with the hope that they will overcome
their sorrow.

(8991) Solidarity = 1980 PV1
     Discovered 1980 Aug. 6 at the European Southern Observatory.
     Named by the Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature to honor the
solidarity of people around the world with both victims and survivors
of terrorist attacks like those on New York and Washington on 2001
Sept.\ 11, in the goal of eliminating terrorism from the world.

(8992) Magnanimity = 1980 TE7
     Discovered 1980 Oct 14 at the Purple Mountain Observatory.
     Named by the Committee for Small-Body Nomenclature to honor the
magnanimity of people around the world in dealing with terrorist attacks
like those on New York and Washington on 2001 Sept.\ 11, in the hope
that terrorism will be countered with justice for all, not with revenge.
---

Cheers,
Reiner

FROM THE MINOR PLANET MAILING LIST [9/10/01]. For the full text or to
subscribe, please visit:
MPML Home page: http://www.bitnik.com/mp
MPML FAQ: http://www.bitnik.com/mp/MPML-FAQ.html
MPML's Yahoogroups page: http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/mpml

=============
(4) ULYSSES SEES THE SUN BEGIN TO QUITEN DOWN

>From Andrew Yee <ayee@nova.astro.utoronto.ca>

ESA Science News
http://sci.esa.int

08 Oct 2001

Ulysses sees the Sun begin to quieten down

Order is returning to the solar wind as the Sun begins to shake off the
chaos that has characterised its behaviour during the recent peak in its
11-year activity cycle.

"Since the last part of August, Ulysses appears to be back at the edge of
the prolonged high speed solar polar wind," says George Gloeckler, from the
University of Maryland, who is principal investigator of the Solar Wind Ion
Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) on Ulysses. The re-emergence
of the high speed wind from the Sun's north polar regions, which the
spacecraft is presently crossing, is a sign that the activity is subsiding
and the Sun is beginning to settle down once more to a quiet time.

During maximum solar activity, the polarity of the Sun's magnetic field
changes: the north pole takes on the polarity of the south pole and vice
versa. "The magnetic polarity that accompanies this high speed solar wind
stream is the new polarity," says Andre Balogh, from Imperial College,
London, who is principal investigator for the magnetometer experiment on
Ulysses.

The Sun is settling down at high latitudes where Ulysses is journeying now.
But solar storms are still raging near the equator -- some have hit the
Earth very recently. "There may be turmoil yet near the equatorial region,
but Ulysses has started observing conditions which will eventually prevail
all around the Sun," says Balogh.

Recent images taken by SOHO, ESA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, also
reveal that the Sun's shift to the new cycle is asymmetrical. In the SOHO
image on the left, the dark area around the north pole, from which the high
speed solar wind is emerging, is not yet matched by a similar region around
the south pole. This should change over the coming months as the Sun's
activity diminishes.

The last time Ulysses observed quiet conditions over the entire Sun was
during the spacecraft's first six-year solar polar orbit when the Sun was at
or near solar minimum. Then, Ulysses discovered that the boundary between
high speed wind streaming away from the poles, and low speed wind emanating
from lower latitudes, is quite distinct. Last year, when the Sun's activity
peaked, Ulysses flew above the Sun's south pole for the second time and
found a solar wind of slow or intermediate speed, just as it had seen at
lower latitudes during the build up to maximum.

The intrepid spacecraft will continue to make observations for at least the
next two years as the Sun's activity subsides towards the next minimum. Once
Ulysses has completed its current north polar passage, it will embark once
again on the long leg of its circuit out towards Jupiter's orbit.

For further information please contact:

Dr Richard Marsden
Ulysses project scientist
ESTEC, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 71 5653583
Email:Richard.Marsden@esa.int

USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS STORY

* More about Ulysses
  http://sci.esa.int/ulysses

IMAGE CAPTIONS:

[Image 1:
http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=11&cid=12&oid=28588&ooid=28585 ]
SOHO EIT image of the Sun showing the coronal hole (dark area) covering the
north polar region.

[Image 2:
http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=11&cid=12&oid=28588&ooid=20410 ]
Ulysses is now travelling over high latitudes towards the Sun's north pole.

=============================
* CATASTROPHISM & TERRORISM *
=============================


(5) FLORIDA CASES LIKELY TO BE FIRST EVER ANTHRAX ATTACK
 
>From New Scientist, 9 October 2001
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991403
 
Debora MacKenzie
 
A man who died of the rare pneumonic form of anthrax on Friday now appears
to have been the victim of a deliberate attack. If confirmed, the case will
be the first documented and fatal attack with anthrax, long feared as a
biological weapon.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has now launched a criminal
investigation into the death of Robert Stevens of Lantana, Florida, after
anthrax bacilli were detected on his keyboard at work, and in the nasal
passages of a 73-year-old man who worked in his company's mailroom. That man
has not been confirmed as having developed clinical anthrax.

Another employee who developed pneumonia symptoms may also have anthrax. So
might a man in Virginia with suspicious symptoms who recently visited the
company, American Media Incorporated, publisher of supermarket tabloids The
Sun and The National Enquirer.

Florida Senator Bob Graham told newspapers that, according to his briefings
by top US health officials, the chance that two people in the same office
would inhale anthrax spores "by anything other than human intervention was
nil to none". The bacteria on the first victim's keyboard also seem to rule
out earlier speculations that he might have inhaled spores from imported
wool, or from soil contaminated by a long-dead animal.

Letter bomb

Safety-suited specialists from state and federal agencies are examining the
company's office building in Boca Raton, Florida for further contamination.
The US Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta wants anyone who worked in the
building after 1 August to start taking antibiotics.

The anthrax spores may have been sent in the post. Since the threat of
bioterrorism began getting widespread publicity in the US three years ago,
dozens of offices have received envelopes containing powders alleged to be
anthrax. Not one that was tested contained anthrax, raising the possibility
that Stevens might have received a similar envelope but dismissed it as a
hoax.

Britain, the US, the Soviet Union, Iraq and possibly others have worked on
anthrax weapons. At least 64 people died in an accidental release of
weaponised anthrax in Sverdlovsk, Russia in 1979. But a deliberate and
successful attack is unknown - a point often cited by defence specialists
who consider biological attack unlikely.

The Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan, which released nerve gas on the Tokyo
underground in 1995, tried to develop anthrax weapons, but apparently never
got beyond practice runs with a non-lethal strain. Allegations that South
African anthrax was released in Zimbabwe during its independence struggles
have never been confirmed.

Scientists in the US are analysing the anthrax that killed Stevens, and
comparing it to strains from around the world, in an effort to trace the
bacteria's geographic origins. The results have not yet been announced.
 
Copyright 2001, New Scientist 

=============
(6) BIOTERRORISM: OBTAINING ANTHRAX IS HARD, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE

>From The New York Times, 10 October 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/10/science/10GERM.html

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
 
Just as growing a particularly exotic species of plant takes the right seed,
growing an anthrax culture that is virulent enough to kill people requires
just the right seed stock.

Experts said yesterday that the bacterial seeds for the anthrax spores that
killed one man in Florida and infected another could have come - in
decreasing order of likelihood - from nature, from a scientific germ bank or
from one of the world's clandestine programs that make germ weapons.

The germ that causes anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, lives in the soil
worldwide and sometimes infects animals and people. Weapons experts said
such natural outbreaks are a main way that a terrorist might obtain starter
germs, or seed stock. With luck and determination in getting the starter
germ, it would be fairly easy to grow billions of offspring to make a crude
weapon.

But anthrax can also be obtained from germ banks, scientific supply houses
that supply tissue cultures and organisms to researchers and others.

More than 1,500 germ banks worldwide maintain a million or so strains of
microorganisms, many deadly. Hospitals order them to check the accuracy of
diagnostic procedures, and scientists and doctors use them to investigate
new therapies.

In recent years, the United States has tightened up access to such banks and
their hazardous germs, making it hard if not impossible for terrorists to
obtain pathogens from establishments in this country.

Dr. Raymond H. Cypess, president of the American Type Culture Collection in
Manassas, Va., the world's largest germ bank, said his company since 1997
had not shipped to scientists any human pathogens that could be made into
weapons - including anthrax.

But American experts said the global network of germ banks was far less
cautious, with credential checks and shipment rules uneven or rudimentary.
The World Federation for Culture Collections, an organization of germ banks,
has 472 members registered in 61 countries. Forty-six members offer anthrax
free or for sale in exchange for other organisms.

Each country sets its own rules on what pathogens may be shipped, to whom
and with what safety procedures.

"It all depends on the country," an American expert said on condition of
anonymity. "There's little or no coordination" of rules and procedures meant
to keep dangerous germs out of terrorist hands.

Experts said a final, if unlikely, source of a virulent stain of anthrax
would be one of the world's clandestine programs that made germ weapons.
Iraq, for instance, is known to have made anthrax weapons before the 1991
Persian Gulf war and is suspected of having them today.

At least 82 countries have reported anthrax in animals, and thousands of
human cases occur each year, most in developing countries. The disease has
plagued North America for centuries, infecting animals and people with
decreasing frequency in recent years.

But a terrorist who sought to use germs from one of these outbreaks to kill
people would have to find a virulent strain.

"There are many variations on the theme of anthrax," said William C. Patrick
III, a maker of germ weapons for the United States before President Richard
M. Nixon renounced them in 1969.

Over the ages, Mr. Patrick said, nature has evolved dozens of different
anthrax strains, or subspecies. Some are deadlier than others.

"We went through 22 or 23 of them, a large number, before we got the right
one," Mr. Patrick said of America's development of the best strain of
anthrax for making lethal weapons.

In the early 1990's the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo repeatedly tried to make
and use anthrax weapons, but it failed, in large part because it did not
obtain a lethal strain. One of its tactics was to obtain the germs from
nature.

Mr. Patrick said the drawback of that approach was that the terrorist would
have to do extensive testing of the germs for virulence by infecting such
animals as mice, hamsters, rabbits and dogs.

"The probability of going out in nature and getting a virulent strain on the
first try would be about 50-50," he said. Failure, he added, would require
another round or two of disease finding, field collecting and virulence
testing.

"You'd pick the one that killed the most species with the lowest dose," he
said, "and that takes facilities" and hard work.

Mr. Patrick said that if the Florida anthrax turned out to be a professional
strain - one that has been developed into a biological weapon - then the
people who spread it "have connections to a much better source of material
than if they were out in the field messing around."

Experts said fewer than a half dozen strains of highly virulent anthrax had
been turned into professional weapons around the globe, and that scientific
detectives might eventually be able to tell if clandestine programs or some
other source accounted for the Florida death.

ProMED, a news service of the International Society for Infectious Diseases,
reported on Monday that the disease recently struck in Canada, killing
cattle last month in Saskatchewan's first anthrax outbreak since 1994.

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company

=============
(7) ANTHRAX ATTACK? PROBABLY, BUT THAT'S NO REASON TO PANIC.

>From Reason Magazine, 10 October 2001
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb101001.html

By Ronald Bailey, Reason Science Correspondent

My first brush with "bioterrorism" occurred in 1997, when I was working as a
television producer half a block from the B'nai B'rith National Headquarters
in Washington, D.C. On April 24, a package leaking a red gelatin labeled
"anthrax yersinia" was discovered in the B'nai B'rith mailroom. Police and
emergency teams sealed off our street, and we watched from our building's
roof as medics in sealed white "moonsuits" hosed down unfortunate B'nai
B'rith employees in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue. Later we learned
that 17 people had been taken to a local hospital for monitoring.

The red gelatin was tested at the Bethesda Naval Research Facility. It
turned out to contain neither anthrax nor bubonic plague (yersinia). The
"bio-attack" was an anti-Semitic hoax, the perpetrator of which has still
not been caught. Yet it cost more than $2 million to handle and was enough
to close down a major thoroughfare less than a mile from the White House for
10 hours, disrupting normal activities in the city and spreading fear among
its citizens.

The B'nai B'rith anthrax hoax is not by any means an isolated incident. The
Monterey Institute of International Studies has been keeping track of recent
terrorist incidents using chemical, biological, and nuclear materials. Their
database shows that in the United States, all anthrax threats -- 34 in 2000
and 91 in 1999 -- were hoaxes.

But the Florida incident is clearly not a hoax. Last Friday, Bob Stevens, a
photo editor for American Media Inc. (AMI) -- the parent company of the
supermarket tabloids The National Enquirer and The Globe -- died of
inhalational anthrax. This is the worst form of the disease, in which
victims are infected by inhaling spores of the anthrax bacteria; it kills at
least 80 percent of its victims who do not receive antibiotic treatment
before the onset of its flu-like symptoms. Fortunately, anthrax is not
contagious, so people who come in contact with an infected person are not at
risk of contracting the illness.

During this past weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation screened hundreds of AMI employees and discovered
anthrax in the nasal passage of another person, 73-year-old Ernesto Blanco,
who supervises the company's mailroom; Blanco is currently being treated for
flu-like symptoms at a Florida hospital. They also found anthrax spores on
Stevens' computer keyboard. The AMI building has been sealed, all AMI
employees are being tested for Anthrax, and investigators are combing the
building for the source of the infection.

But doesn't anthrax occur naturally? Couldn't this be just a gruesome
coincidence at a jittery time?

"It's pretty safe to say that the Florida incident is not a natural
occurrence," says Claudine McCarthy, a research associate in the Chemical
and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Henry L. Stimson
Center in Washington, D.C. "You don't get anthrax in office buildings and on
people's keyboards naturally." Eric Croddy, a research associate at the
Monterey Institute, puts the chances that the outbreak is natural at less
than 50 percent.

McCarthy's and Croddy's assessments are consistent with the Consensus
Statement of leading experts on "Anthrax as a Biological Weapon" published
in the May 12, 1999, Journal of the American Medical Association. This
document declared, "No case of inhalational anthrax has been reported in the
United States since 1978, making even a single case a cause for alarm
today."

McCarthy hastens, however, to point out that the Florida incident is a good
example of what is much more likely to happen if terrorists actually use
anthrax: a few people are exposed and harmed, but there is no widespread
exposure or mass casualties. "It is much more difficult to use anthrax and
other biological agents in mass attacks than is often suggested by the
media," McCarthy notes. Because of the difficulty in "weaponizing"
biological agents, she concludes that even if the Florida incident does turn
out to be some sort of attack, Americans have no reason to panic.

Just how hard it is to turn bacteria into weapons is illustrated by the case
of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo. In the 1990s, the cult, in an
effort to spark an apocalyptic war between Japan and the United States,
spent millions of dollars developing biological weapons. On eight different
occasions, it tried but failed to spread anthrax and botulism throughout
Tokyo with a rooftop sprayer and automobile exhaust systems. Frustrated, the
cult then turned in March 1995 to Sarin nerve gas, which they released in
plastic bags in the Tokyo subway, killing 12 commuters and making thousands
ill.

"Most experts concur that the manufacture of a lethal anthrax aerosol is
beyond the capacity of individuals or groups without access to advanced
biotechnology," says the JAMA Consensus Statement. It then strikes a more
worrisome note: "However, autonomous groups with substantial funding and
contacts may be able to acquire the required materials for a successful
attack." Acquire the required materials from whom? After the Gulf War, the
United Nations' inspectors found and destroyed 157 Iraqi aerial bombs loaded
with various biological agents, including anthrax. Most experts believe that
Iraq is still engaged in producing biological weapons. According to Croddy,
the Department of Defense has "intimated that Osama bin Laden has been
seeking biological weapons for many years."

Preliminary information suggests that the Florida anthrax strain is
susceptible to being treated with penicillin. That means that it is not one
of the more dangerous versions created by weaponeers in the Soviet Union. If
terrorists did acquire the Florida anthrax spores from an outside source, it
may be possible to use genetic testing to trace the strain back to their
original makers.

In addition, Croddy notes that it would be relatively easy for a determined
group to produce small amounts of anthrax spores that could be spread as
non-aerosols, perhaps through the mail.

Even if it turns out that, as unlikely as it seems, the Florida outbreak has
a natural explanation, there is little doubt that would-be terrorists will
be issuing further anthrax and other bioterrorism threats in the future as a
way of trying to sow uncertainty and panic. So what to do?

"First, take a deep breath and don't panic," advises the Stimson Center's
McCarthy. "Whatever is happening in Florida is not indicative of a massive
attack nor does it point to the possibility of such attacks. Panicking is
what the terrorists want us to do." She notes that since the despicable
attacks on September 11, that U.S. public health system has been on very
high alert monitoring to make sure that any biological attack is quickly
detected and contained. Other experts warn Americans against promiscuously
using antibiotics like ciprofloxacin (Cipro) on a continuing basis in a
misguided efforts to ward off an unlikely anthrax attack.

The bottom line? "I live in Washington, D.C. I don't have a gas mask and I
take the Metro every morning to work," says McCarthy. "It's a risk leaving
your house to go to work every day. The remote possibility of a bioterrorist
attack isn't worth worrying about."

Ronald Bailey (rbailey@reason.com) is REASON's science correspondent and the
editor of Earth Report 2000: Revisiting the True State of the Planet
(McGraw-Hill).

Copyright 2001, Reason Magazine

=============
(8) WAR ON TERRORISM COULD CLOG MILITARY'S SPACE AIRWAVES

>From Space.com, 8 October 2001
http://www.space.com/news/military_clogged_011008.html

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer

The effort to track down Osama bin Laden and rid the world of terrorism
could be bogged down by clogged pipes on the military's satellite-based
information superhighway as the ground forces rely more heavily than ever on
their ability to phone home for instructions.

Though one military analyst said operation Enduring Freedom would have to
escalate out of control for such a scenario to take place, the search for
bin Laden may already have spurred the Department of Defense to shift
orbiting eyeballs away from Iraq and could force the military to purchase
satellite time from private companies.

It wouldn't be the first time.

As war and intelligence operations become more sophisticated, they rely more
heavily on space-relay links from the Pentagon to military command centers
in Europe and the Middle East and, further, to outposts near the front lines
of operation.

More data, more electronic maps, more commands from top brass, even 3-D
visualizations of enemy territory.

"Space has been integrated ever more fully into our military systems, from
targeting to communications to intelligence -- you name it," says Steven
Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American
Scientists. "The infrastructure of our military is utterly dependent on the
space-based component."

Like video clips jamming the Internet, the military's technological
sophistication grows to fill the bandwidth, said Owen Cote, associate
director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

Ground troops, special forces and fighter pilots in the newly proclaimed war
on terrorism will likely move more bits of data than ever before as they are
forced to new levels of creativity to locate a terrorist leader who does not
wish to be found and who has proven extremely elusive.

"It's possible that this operation might exhaust some of our [satellite]
capabilities in the region," Cote said in a telephone interview after the
American-led attacks in Afghanistan Sunday.

Reaching back

As they try to root out terrorists in forbidding, mountainous country, U.S.
and ally forces will depend heavily on a technique called "reach back." It
involves leaving much of the administrative personnel and details behind in
order to streamline a unit of troops, who then rely on a wide communications
pipe to get data and orders from military command centers.

Soldiers in the field could, for example, speak directly with an expert on
mines and download photos and illustrated instructions for how to defuse or
detonate them. The Navy is experimenting with animated 3-D visualizations of
enemy territory.

Cotes said the military continually ratchets up its use of reach-back as
satellite capabilities improve. He likened it to a highway going into a big
city at rush hour: Build another lane, and people who used to take the
subway will choose to drive, instead, and so the highway remains clogged.

Curiously, almost no fighter jets rely on satellite communications, Cotes
said. The receiving units are simply too large to stuff into an F-16.

"They're just beginning to scratch the surface of bringing real-time info
into the cockpit via satellite" as the size of receiver units shrinks, he
said.

Cotes said if operation Enduring Freedom runs into bandwidth problems, there
are two options: The military could purchase satellite time from private
companies, as was done during Desert Storm in 1991; or they could move
military satellites from other orbits into favorable positions over
Afghanistan. "And we wouldn't know it."

The government keeps such changes cloaked in secrecy. But already, some
satellites designed to intercept radio and mobile phone traffic are thought
to have been reassigned from places like Iraq and North Korea to watch over
Afghanistan, according to the online magazine Satnews.

In all, nearly 100 satellites contribute directly or indirectly to operation
Enduring Freedom, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, which
advises the American intelligence community on post-Cold War security
issues.

But Pike said the operation as planned will be just one-tenth the size of
Desert Storm. He said it would have to go seriously wrong in order to
require the kind of satellite support that might clog the system.

"It is perfectly capable of going horribly wrong," Pike said. "But the plan
is to keep it small."

But since Sept. 11, President George Bush has warned that the war on
terrorism would not be confined to Afghanistan. And on Tuesday, the U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, warned that the war could
escalate now that the first rounds of attacks have begun, requiring America
to defend itself against other countries or organizations.

Threat to satellites

All this reliance on communications opens the door to threats that could be
exploited, even by enemies with small forces and limited technical
capabilities. But most major satellite operations should be safe, analysts
said.

Yet while military communications across continents often occur via
relatively secure satellite frequencies, mobile satellite communication
systems used by troops are less reliable.

"It's very easy to jam the uplinks," Cotes said. "But that's been true for
years."

Most experts think it's unlikely that bin Laden or the Taliban, which has
supported him and is the effective ruling body in Afghanistan, could mount
any effort to threaten satellites in space via an actual attack. They are
not thought to have any of the weapons needed to blind or disable a
satellite, said Aftergood, the Federation of American Scientists researcher.

"The Taliban do not have a missile launch capability," he said. "They do not
have anti-satellite capability. They do not have the capability to detonate
nuclear weapons in space."

A more likely target would be ground-based stations where satellite
communications are processed. But Aftergood said those areas would be among
the most well protected military installations.

A 'Pearl Harbor' in space?

In the broader sense, and well before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center, the Department of Defense has worried
about the possibility of a surprise attack on satellites that could cripple
aspects of a U.S. military effort.

The U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM) is charged with monitoring any possible
threats and planning how to counter them. Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart,
SPACECOM commander in chief, calls it the risk of "a Pearl Harbor in space."

While the current terrorist threat is unlikely to extend to space, Eberhart
acknowledged earlier this year that battlefields can change as a war goes
on.

"Even if future adversaries don't have their own space capabilities, they
can gain them from their allies or commercial industry," Eberhart said in
March. "Jammers are in development to defeat communications and GPS
satellites and, in some cases, they're already being sold. The technology
for satellite-blinding lasers is advancing rapidly."

The Global Position System (GPS) was developed for the military and is
widely used to provide highly accurate coordinates of targets, military
bases and personnel.

The future: More space

Meanwhile, U.S. commanders say they must work on better integration between
the various branches of the Armed Forces to make better use of the
space-based tools they have and the data that is generated.

"We need to realize that we must integrate our manned, unmanned and space
platforms," said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper. "We shouldn't be
jealous about which platform or sensor is put to work in the air, on the
ground or in space."

One sign of the times: Last year the Air Force created an air and space
operations center (AOC), billed as a "new weapons system," at Nellis Air
Force Base, Nev.

Jumper said airmen need to become more proficient at gathering and
synthesizing time-critical information that can be used destroy targets.

"While we still acknowledge the bravery of those at the 'tip of the spear'
who put themselves in harm's way deep over enemy territory, the fact is that
the AOC warrior will play a big part of target identification and
destruction in the future," he said.

That future, it would seem, is now.

And earlier this week, the Department of Defense laid out a plan to beef up
military space surveillance and communications, while also underscoring the
need to deny use of space by adversaries.

Elusive bin Laden

But for all their promise, can satellites find Osama bin Laden?

"No," Aftergood said.

"There are too many ways that he can conceal himself from space-based
detection. For one thing, from space you're looking down or at a slightly
oblique angle. Essentially what you see is the top of someone's head.
Identifying an individual from an overhead view is not something one can
count on."

Aftergood and other military experts agree that while satellites are crucial
for communications and imaging, they will not play as big a role in
America's proclaimed war on terrorism as they have in other military efforts
over the past decade, including the Gulf War and the NATO-led effort in
Kosovo.

"We learned in the Gulf War... that we're not very good at finding and
attacking mobile and fleeting targets," Aftergood said.
 
Copyright 2001, Space.com

============
(9) TERRORIST ATTACKS FORCE SPACE PROGRAMS TO FOCUS ON LAND-BASED SECURITY

>From Canadian Press, 9 October 2001
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/story.asp?id={E1C8E6D3-B41C-4E61-A726-13452E529641}

BRIAN DALY 
Canadian Press
 
MONTREAL (CP) - The Canadian Space Agency, nerve centre for some of the
world's most advanced high-tech hardware, could be vulnerable to a sneak air
attack by terrorists, says an agency official.

Two commercial airports are located near the suburban St-Hubert
headquarters. The U.S. space agency faces similar concerns, highlighting the
immense security challenges that both face in this new terrorist age. "We
are right next to a commercial airport here in St-Hubert so how do you
prevent a jet attack from happening?" said Hugues Gilbert, director of
strategic operations for the Canadian Space Agency.

Gilbert offered no guarantees that Canadian Forces jets could offer
immediate air protection from jetliner attacks similar to the ones that
killed up to 6,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on
Sept. 11.

But security at the sprawling agency headquarters has been beefed up.
Visitors will face tougher questions from security guards and an
identification badge will have to be visible at all times, said Gilbert.

"Following what happened on Sept. 11, we have restricted access to some
areas of the Canadian Space Agency building," he said.

The agency is home to an array of world-class technology such as Canadarm2,
the robotic arm used to assemble and maintain the international space
station.

It also houses the main control room for the Radarsat earth observation
satellite.

Both programs could be vulnerable to attacks by terrorists looking for
high-profile targets, said veteran space writer Olivier-Louis Robert.

"Terrorists may try to reach at powerful symbols," said Robert, a Montreal
journalist and author who has written extensively on space issues.

"As partners with NASA we have to comply with their security regulations."

Security was immediately tightened up at NASA following last month's attaks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

NASA spokeswoman Kirsten Larson said several agency buildings are located on
military bases and are therefore subject to the same scrutiny as any
military installation.

But Larson was tight-lipped about any specific security measures being used
to safeguard NASA facilities.

"We did take appropriate steps to protect our people and our assets," said
Larson.

The Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., home to the space shuttle
program, is a particularly sensitive site, say U.S. experts.

The facility is protected by a nearby air force base but according to former
NASA engineer Keith Cowing, even fighter jets may not be able to defend the
four shuttles from a commercial airliner transformed into a passenger-laden
missile.

Cowing, who worked for NASA in the early 1990s, pointed out that Cape
Canaveral is a popular tourist attraction with two airports nearby.

"The issues of the launch pads has been a long-standing concern," said
Cowing, editor of NASA Watch magazine in Reston, Va.

"When you have a fully fuelled shuttle there, were that to explode, we're
talking about force that's often compared to a small nuclear bomb."

Cowing said security breaches are not uncommon at launch pad 39, where
several shuttles blast off every year.

He pointed out that private aircraft have been caught flying in restricted
airspace near the launch site prior to liftoff, which suggests the area
could be vulnerable.

"We don't know what's up the sleeves of these terrorists," Cowing said.

Analysts believe the international effort to stamp out terrorism will force
space programs to put their cutting-edge technology to work on Earth.

But will long-term projects such as manned missions to the moon and to Mars
be shelved until the terrorist threat is eradicated?

Frank Sietzen, a space writer based in Washington, D.C., said NASA has no
choice but to put the programs on hold.

Sietzen, editor of the National Space Society publication Ad Astra, said the
International Space Station may be the last major project of its kind to be
completed in the near future.

"The focus, instead of a national policy that commits to a man on Mars, is
going to be technology that we have developed for other purposes that we can
harness to defeat this terrorism enemy," he said.

The next generation of NASA shuttles may also be delayed by at least a year,
said Sietzen, as the agency researches and develops anti-terrorist projects.


For example, mobile robots based on the Mars rovers set for launch in 2003
could be sent into buildings under attack. Space suits could also be adapted
to protect firefighters and other emergency personnel.

But Robert said humankind must continue to push into outer space once the
terrorist threat is eradicated. He pointed out that shuttle flights
eventually resumed following the explosion of the Challenger orbiter in
1986.

© Copyright 2001 The Canadian Press

=============
(10) TERROR ATTACKS FUEL END TIMES THEOLOGIES

>From Holland Sentinel, 6 October 2001
http://hollandsentinel.com/stories/100601/rel_1006010030.shtml

By JAY LINDSAY
Associated Press writer

Predictions that the end of the world is at hand have come and gone for
centuries, and they've always had one thing in common. They've always been
wrong.

Yet with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, experts who
monitor doomsday predictions say fresh apocalyptic scenarios are popping up
with a new intensity.

"People who are obsessed with end times have never learned from history,"
said Hank Hanegraaff, president of the California-based Christian Research
Institute, a conservative evangelical agency that monitors new religious
movements.

"They've been 100 percent wrong, 100 percent of the time."

Hal Lindsey, author of best-selling books on Bible prophecy, envisions more
terrorist attacks, setting the stage for the collapse of America.

"The Battle of America has begun!" Lindsey wrote in the minutes after the
strikes on the World Trade Center. "So be it!"

"I saw without any happiness at all the reality that it's begun," Lindsey
said in a telephone interview from the Los Angeles area. "The decline of the
United States has begun."

In San Antonio, Texas, evangelist John Hagee told his congregation, "You can
hear the Four Horsemen riding to Armageddon," referring to the harbingers of
what many Christians believe is earth's final battle.

Paul Crouch of Trinity Broadcasting Network, a Christian media company, said
the attack was the next stage in what Jesus described as "the beginning of
sorrows" during the end times.

New York minister David Wilkerson said the attacks were a warning of a
greater destruction he's already predicted, unless New York City repents.

The messages are extreme, but the audiences for them are in the mainstream,
according to polls.

Forty percent of adults and 71 percent of evangelical Protestants, according
to a 1999 Newsweek poll, believe the world will end in a battle at
Armageddon between Christ and the Antichrist, an evil ruler on earth
foretold in the Bible.

Uncertainty caused by catastrophe makes people anxious about tomorrow, said
Lindsey, whose 20 books, including "The Late Great Planet Earth," have sold
tens of millions of copies.

"I think people see the events going on and they want an answer," he said.
"They want an idea where it's going."

But critics say that people such as Lindsey haven't helped. Church historian
Samuele Bacchiocchi, in his book "Hal Lindsey's Prophetic Jigsaw Puzzle,"
details several of Lindsey's failed predictions. Among them: that Christ
would return in 1988 during a colossal nuclear clash between the armies of
Europe and Asia.

Still, Bacchiocchi has no doubt that tens of thousands will again heed
Lindsey's interpretations of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Despite the fact that he's been consistently wrong, there are people who
believe it and will follow him," he said.

The apocalypse-minded aren't deterred by errant predictions, said Richard
Landes, director of Boston University's Center for Millennial Studies.

"These people don't give up because they're disappointed," he said. "They're
just waiting for a new sign."

Lindsey said his predictions about the end times will prove accurate in the
long run.

"The things I said were said long before I was alive," Lindsey said.

The foundation for modern day prophetic interpretation, particularly in the
camp known as Dispensationalism, is the establishment of Israel as a nation
in 1948. Some believe Jesus foretold the event in the New Testament when he
said his kingdom would come in the generation when a metaphorical fig tree
sprouts leaves (Matthew 24:29-35) -- which some interpret to mean when
Israel becomes a nation.

Interpreters debate the meaning and length of a "generation," but writers
like Lindsey use 1948 as the starting date and calculate Christ's return
sometime in the early 21st century. That gives devastating, global events
such as the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington tremendous
significance, and leads to quick parallels with biblical texts.

In his remarks, Wilkerson compared New York City with Babylon, a financial
center whose destruction is foretold in Revelation 18, 10-11: "Woe! Woe, O
great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come! The
merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys
their cargoes anymore."

Lindsey believes the Old Testament book of Daniel, in Chapters 2 and 7,
tells of the re-emergence of the Roman Empire in the earth's final days.
That means Europe will become the center of global power, he said.

"It's not the United States," he said. "It shows something has to happen. I
think what happened (Sept. 11) was just the beginning."

Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and many Protestant churches reject such
end-times interpretations, saying Revelation and Daniel should not be read
literally and citing Jesus' words that no one will know the day and hour of
his return (Matthew 24:36).

"At some point, (end times forecasters) are going to be right, sure," Said
Bob Weldrep of the Texas-based Watchman Fellowship, a Christian group that
studies new religions and apocalyptic cults. "We won't know until after it
occurs."

Hanegraaff thinks Christians who are obsessed with end times ultimately
discredit the faith.

"It's what I call 'newspaper theology,' where you try to take passages in
Scripture and you try to line them up with current events to pin the tale on
the Antichrist," he said.

"Every time you make a prediction that doesn't come true, you're looking
more and more ridiculous."

Copyright 2000 Morris Digital Works and The Holland Sentinel.

============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================

(11) GOOD NEWS - FOR A CHANGE

>From Andy Smith <astrosafe@yahoo.com>

Hello Benny and CCNet,

It is a pleasure to report that the World NEO hunt had a good month, in
September. LINEAR is back in high-gear and the total discovery count passed
65, for the month. That equates to an annual discovery rate of close to
1,000, which is our next goal. Two-thirds of the new discoveries were
smaller than a kilometer, in width.

The Minor Planet Center (MPC) now has about 1,526 NEA(NEO) on-file. About
20% of these are considered potentially hazardous (PHA)and 11 are considered
very hazardous (our term) by the NEODYS team, in Italy. Please remember that
the NEA population we need to inventory is probably greater than 100,000.

For most of 20th Century, the average global discovery rate was in the
single digit range (we were not aware of the dangers and the risks and we
did not have the needed tools). This rate increased significantly, in the
last few decades, thanks to the Shoemakers, Helin, Bowell, Gehrels and
others.

In the early 1990's we moved up to the double digit level (thanks to Tom
Gehrels and the SPACEWATCH team and the CCD camera). In the late 1990's
Grant Stokes and the Air Force/NASA/MIT LINEAR team moved us up to three
digits. With luck, we will reach the four digit level, in  the next few
years. This can be done, with ease, if the six present teams reach full
productivity.  The Japanese Spaceguard team plans to go into full-production
very soon and we certainly wish them the best...we need their help.

With the large Dark-Matter Telescope (DMT), we should be able to reach the 5
digit level and reduce the critical NEO inventory completion time to a
decade, instead of a century. By the way, the distinguished DMT team has
expanded and improved the Web site information, quite a bit.

Disaster Awareness

The tragic September disaster has increased disaster awareness and improved
our chances of getting the attention of policymakers, around the world.
Perhaps we can, at least, make them aware of the seriousness of the
asteroid/comet threat and provide them such facts as that the Tunguska risk
(20 megaton destruction level) is on the order of 1 in 100 per year (an
alarming risk, in light of the consequences).

We are continuing to communicate with the Senate Natural Hazards Caucus and
the Caucus Working Group and we keep urging them to include asteroid/comet
emergencies on their list of natural threats.

Defense Ideas

We are also asking our Russian colleagues to examine the feasibility of
using a modified Soyuz, as a possible emergency asteroid/comet interceptor.
In addition, we are asking the asteroid mining development companies to
consider including emergency planetary defense missions, in their spacecraft
designs. Finally, we feel it is essential for the nuclear explosive
specialists, in the U.S. and Russia, to determine ways to reduce the
asteroid/comet emergency response times, by making-sure their super-safe
systems can be mated, rapidly, with off-the-shelf launchers and spacecraft.

We see no need to deploy such systems, unless there is an emergency and we
are urging the development of coordinated emergency plans, with the help of
the United Nations. The International Program Office of the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)is helping to promote
planetary defense dialogue and we appreciate their contribution to the
global effort.

Cheers
Andy Smith

=============
(12) SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE AND THE AFGHAN REFUGEES

>From Steve Drury <s.a.drury@open.ac.uk>

Dear Benny

Reports of the US launch of a Keyhole-11 surveillance satellite as a means
of tracking movements of people and vehicles begs the question of when the
US intelligence community will release high-resolution products to assist in
tracking the movements and location of the masses of refugees driven from
their homes by a blend of famine from 3 years of drought and US-British
military action.

A constellation of KH-11 and KH-12 satellites that can be shifted to
different orbits to cover specific targets has been in place for over a
decade, yet not a single case of their use in humanitarian relief has been
reported. The greatest problem in supplying emergency relief is knowing
where people at risk are located, and agencies such as UNHCR and Oxfam
urgently require timely images with people-detecting resolution. These were
lacking in recent disasters such as the flight of millions from Rwanda, and
the floods in Orissa and Mozambique, and many similar cases. The
protestations by Bush and Blair that they intend to assist the innocent
people of Afghanistan while they seek out the perpetrators of the outrage of
11 September, will be a sham if such images are not released.

Any remote sensing specialist is well aware that a resolution of 10 cm (in
fact it is probably around 15 cm at best, due to the difficulties of
removing the blurring effects of atmospheric turbulence and scatterig by
dust and haze) is incapable of discriminating individuals.  In fact it would
be unable to read the name on the back of David Beckham's shirt, and I doubt
that terrorists conveniently wear distinctive individual markings of that
kind.

Moreover, it is well known in the RS community that similar resolution
images of corpses of victims from the Srebrenica massacres were acquired by
US U2 surveillance aircraft, yet were suppressed, even from the White House,
until several weeks after that outrage became common knowledge -
http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/bosnia16.htm

Steve Drury

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